Friday, October 22, 2010

Verticals and Horizontals

I know an architect who, whenever he sees a building, shuts one eye and squints. If something isn’t square, he’ll say, “That wall’s a bit out of whack.” Or “The roof is sagging.”

Architects are programmed to check the verticals go straight up and horizontals follow the horizon.

And it helps your photographs if you approach certain subjects with this in mind.

Especially buildings. Use a wide-angle lens. Position yourself dead center and aim the camera lens dead horizontal and check there is no tilting. The house walls should be parallel with the vertical side of the picture frame and the floor should be parallel with the bottom of it.

Check the image on the photo editor. Pull the dotted marquee tool into a rectangle and check the verticals and horizontals of any square objects in the picture, like a house.

If the verts or horizes are a bit out of whack, you can rotate the picture until it comes right.

You can’t get it right every time. The pink house pictured had to be rotated 1 degree clockwise.